Simplifying Regulatory Returns with Automated Data Collation

Understanding the Challenge

Housing associations, supported housing providers, and student accommodation teams work in environments where compliance isn’t optional—it’s foundational. Regulatory returns such as the Statistical Data Return (SDR), Local Authority returns, CORE data, and Rent Standard submissions are essential elements of public accountability and sector funding. However, gathering and submitting these returns is often far more burdensome than it needs to be.

Having worked with dozens of providers across the sector, I’ve seen the same fundamental issues surface time and again. Manual data collection. Disparate tools. Legacy software that can’t ‘talk’ to each other. The result? Time-consuming processes, frustrated staff, increased operational risk, and ultimately, poorer outcomes for tenants. The organisations that manage our homes are often spending more time wrestling with spreadsheets than delivering services.

The Root Causes of Inefficiency

To understand how automation can help, we first have to look squarely at the problems we’re trying to solve. Housing providers often face multiple, overlapping digital and operational challenges that make regulatory reporting a significant drain on resources.

Manual Workload and Human Error

For many smaller and medium-sized housing organisations, the bulk of regulatory reporting is still manually compiled. Staff must extract data from core housing systems, finance software, repair logs, tenancy files, and even piles of paper records. This work is often distributed across different departments, leading to duplication of effort and inconsistent data capture.

And where there is manual data handling, there’s always room for error. I’ve seen teams stay late for weeks to meet reporting deadlines, only to submit returns that contain gaps, wrong figures, or out-of-date data, simply because there was no time to double-check everything.

Legacy Systems

Many housing providers still rely on aging core housing management systems (HMS) that were never designed for modern integration. Extracting reliable, timely data from these systems can feel like an impossible task, often requiring complex reports, consultants, or workarounds. Worse still, these systems may no longer be supported or receive updates, leaving organisations reliant on risky, custom-built fixes just to remain functional.

Integration Gaps

Even providers with newer systems face the issue of integration. A finance system here, a repair system there, an asset register in another tool, and tenancy records stored locally by different teams: with no data pipeline between them, reporting becomes an exercise in interpretation rather than information retrieval. This lack of interoperability is one of the biggest contributors to delays and inaccuracies in submissions.

Regulatory Pressures and Compliance Risks

Regulatory bodies like the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) are becoming more stringent in their expectations around timely and accurate reporting. Data quality is no longer a nice-to-have—errors or late submissions can lead to adverse regulatory judgments, reputational damage, or financial penalties.

Compliance risk isn’t just about ticking boxes—it’s about demonstrating that housing providers are trustworthy custodians of public funding and capable guardians of tenant wellbeing. If reports don’t reflect reality, that’s a governance issue, as well as a data issue.

Impact on Tenancy Experience

Perhaps most under-reported is the impact all this has on tenants. When staff are buried in reactive reporting work, there’s less time to focus on proactive tenancy support. Further, inconsistent or poorly maintained data feeds into operational decision-making—increasing void periods, delaying repairs, and disrupting services people rely on.

Many frontline staff know that the systems they rely on to record interactions or escalate issues can’t be trusted for reliable data. This breeds mistrust internally and leads to siloed workarounds which move the organisation further away from a “single source of truth.”

The Case for Automation

Automation, when implemented thoughtfully, offers a practical remedy. Not an overnight fix, not a silver bullet—but a clear path to reduce the administrative burden of regulatory returns. By using technology to collect, standardise, and aggregate data automatically, housing providers can free up staff time, improve data accuracy, and respond more confidently to compliance requests.

What Is Automated Data Collation?

At its core, automated data collation means using software to pull information from multiple data sources—housing management systems, finance tools, repair databases, etc.—into a structured format that aligns to a specific reporting need. This process can be set to run on schedules, triggered by workflows, or updated in real-time, enabling ‘live’ dashboards and accurate exports.

Key Benefits

• Time Savings: Teams spend far less time gathering, cleaning, and reconciling data.
• Accuracy: Automation reduces human error and ensures standardised formatting.
• Audit Trail: Automated systems can provide logs to show how data was processed and when.
• Data Consistency: With a centralised approach, the same data source supports both operational actions and regulatory evidence.
• Multi-report Mapping: One well-configured data structure can feed several return formats—no duplication.

Practical Implementation Steps

Implementing automated reporting doesn’t require a full-scale digital transformation from the outset. In fact, many of the most successful projects start small and grow incrementally once trust in the new process is established.

1. Map Your Data Sources

Begin by listing all the systems that house data relevant to your regulatory returns. This typically includes:

• Core Housing Management Systems (e.g. Northgate, Capita, Civica)
• Finance systems (e.g. Sage, OpenAccounts, Dynamics)
• Asset and compliance systems (e.g. Keystone, PIMSS)
• Repair contractors or DLO systems
• CRM or tenancy engagement platforms

Understanding where data sits is the first step to connecting it in a meaningful way.

2. Standardise Terminology

Discrepancies in naming conventions can be a major pain point. For instance, if property types are classified differently in your HMS and finance system, your returns will show inconsistencies. Standardising terminology across systems—or at least within your collation process—helps resolve this.

3. Prioritise Interoperability

If your systems lack APIs or export functionality, consider middleware solutions or reporting interfaces that can bridge the gap. In many cases, simple scheduled exports (CSV or XML) can be used as interim data feeds before more sophisticated integrations are built over time.

4. Build Templates for Key Returns

Set up templates—ideally managed in a Business Intelligence (BI) tool or spreadsheet engine like Power BI, Tableau, or even Power Query-enabled Excel. These templates can map your raw data to the structure required by regulators, allowing for near-instant generation of return-ready files.

5. Quality Control and Testing

Even with automation, it’s crucial to maintain oversight. Build in validations, cross-checks, and data flags to alert teams if something looks off. Ideally, you want to catch issues well before submission deadlines.

6. Staff Training and Process Alignment

Ensure staff are clear on how the automated process works, especially in monitoring inputs and interpreting outputs. Reporting responsibility doesn’t go away—it changes. The people who used to spend four weeks collating data can now spend that time validating, improving, and acting on insights.

Real-World Impact

I recently worked with a supported housing provider struggling to complete their annual SDR due to poor asset records and patchy tenancy data. Previously, four team members spent a combined six weeks gathering and checking information. After implementing automated data pipelines from their HMS, repairs system, and finance tool into a single report scaffold, the entire return could be drafted in under two days—with better accuracy, and real-time dashboards made available to senior staff throughout the year.

Another client—a student accommodation provider—was facing weekly requests for occupancy data from senior leadership alongside multiple termly returns to different educational bodies. By setting up standardised report views connected to their tenancy and booking system, they could satisfy all these needs automatically, freeing up their ops coordinator to focus on tenant wellbeing initiatives instead.

Looking Ahead

Automated data collation isn’t just a technical upgrade—it’s a shift toward more sustainable, reliable operations. Regulators will continue to raise expectations around data quality. Customers will continue to demand more transparency. Staff will continue to deserve tools that support, not strain, their workload.

For small housing teams and operational leaders looking to deliver more with less, aligning your reporting processes with modern best practices is a tangible first step. The benefits are immediate, but the long-term impact—on compliance, on service delivery, and on organisational confidence—is profound.

If you need help implementing technology into your organisation or want some advice — get in touch today at info@proptechconsult.uk